Piers Morgan's interview with a crazy scary gun supporter.

Its amazing how all responsibility is jettisoned and its all about the "guns" to make a segment of the population feel better..... don't feel better. It is really about the laws that need to be enacted where doctors can ask mentally disturbed or emotionally disturbed individuals ( and their families) if they have access to weapons and then report back to authorities (its currently illegal to do that in most states) . That type of action might actually do something.
Banning assault rifles that killed 347 people last year (less than Hammers used in murders for Pete's sake) is not going to cut it. Its just grand standing and agenda driven. So if you truly and really want to fix the issue do the right thing

 

As everyone here knows I am conservative. But I am by no means a gun nut. My issue with this crusade Peirs is on is; that I think Piers as a brit should leave our laws alone. If he wants to live where there are no guns then go back to England. The question that I wanted answered after seeing that segment was "what is the percentage of violent crime in England vrs what is the percentage of violent crime here." Piers only wanted to know what the gun crime rate was. If the violent crime rate is similar then his point is weakened thus he refused to listen.

AS far as gun laws are concerned I see no place for assault weapons here. I think that the NRA did a horrible job by letting their nut job president go off on a rant after Newtown. I think that he took the conversation away from the failures of our mental health system to protect us. There are other factors violent video games, movies, news etc.

 

Wow. Really?

That wasn't a "discussion." It wasn't a "heated debate." Debates and discussions imply that there are opposing points of view being presented. The word for what you watched was "rant." Other useful and accurate descriptions could include the words "non sequitur," "borderline incoherent," "horribly rude," "unstable," and "behavior not becoming of a respectable human being."

Under what circumstances is that kind of behavior acceptable in our society? Oh, because he's saying things you agree with, that makes it A-OK?

I have zero issue with being firm or direct in a disagreement. I have no problems if people want to be animated. I don't even have a problem if people in the midst of an argument are sarcastic or belittle the other person's point of view. I'll even take it one step further and say that there are times when a physical altercation is warranted.

But what happened in that interview was none of the above (from Jones' point of view). It was straight-up assholery - and while I get that that is his shtick - I am sad for people who can look at that kind of behavior and say, "Yeah, brother!" simply because his views are in line with theirs. His actions were a disproportionate response (that were probably more a publicity stunt than anything else... I hope) that has no place in a civilized world.




All that said, you gotta find it amusing that the guy who wants to try Diane Feinstein for treason is apparently perfectly willing to warn about an armed revolt against an elected government. Treason is patriotic or punishment, depending on whether you agree with him.

He doesn't have the right to tell people that? So the Second Amendment trumps the First Amendment is what you're saying?

 

No, sorry, I should not have used the word "right" but since he is not even a citizen we should just not listen to him. I have only watched him twice since he has had the show and both times he was trying to attack our gun laws. I guess I would feel better about it if he was a citizen.

 

Meh. The opinions of non-citizens should not be listened to? By that logic, Snooki has a more valid interpretation of our country's laws than Piers Morgan.

If you don't want to listen to what he says, don't listen to it.

But while that is, of course, completely within your right to do so, it is ridiculous to use citizenship alone as the basis for the validity of an argument.

 

At least with Snooki you know she is a stupid drunk. Piers condoned breaking the law for a story when he was editor of the Mirror. His lack of ethics is the second reason to not listen or follow him.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43907072/ns/world_news-europe/t/cnns-piers-morgan-drawn-hacking-scandal/

 

I saw a very interesting article in Pravda on the gun issue:


Americans never give up your guns


By Stanislav Mishin



These days, there are few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains: the right to bear arms and use deadly force to defend one's self and possessions.

This will probably come as a total shock to most of my Western readers, but at one point, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. This was, of course, when we were free under the Tsar. Weapons, from swords and spears to pistols, rifles and shotguns were everywhere, common items. People carried them concealed, they carried them holstered. Fighting knives were a prominent part of many traditional attires and those little tubes criss crossing on the costumes of Cossacks and various Caucasian peoples? Well those are bullet holders for rifles.

Various armies, such as the Poles, during the Смута (Times of Troubles), or Napoleon, or the Germans even as the Tsarist state collapsed under the weight of WW1 and Wall Street monies, found that holding Russian lands was much much harder than taking them and taking was no easy walk in the park but a blood bath all its own. In holding, one faced an extremely well armed and aggressive population Hell bent on exterminating or driving out the aggressor.


This well armed population was what allowed the various White factions to rise up, no matter how disorganized politically and militarily they were in 1918 and wage a savage civil war against the Reds. It should be noted that many of these armies were armed peasants, villagers, farmers and merchants, protecting their own. If it had not been for Washington's clandestine support of and for the Reds, history would have gone quite differently.

Moscow fell, for example, not from a lack of weapons to defend it, but from the lying guile of the Reds. Ten thousand Reds took Moscow and were opposed only by some few hundreds of officer cadets and their instructors. Even then the battle was fierce and losses high. However, in the city alone, at that time, lived over 30,000 military officers (both active and retired), all with their own issued weapons and ammunition, plus tens of thousands of other citizens who were armed. The Soviets promised to leave them all alone if they did not intervene. They did not and for that were asked afterwards to come register themselves and their weapons: where they were promptly shot.

Of course being savages, murderers and liars does not mean being stupid and the Reds learned from their Civil War experience. One of the first things they did was to disarm the population. From that point, mass repression, mass arrests, mass deportations, mass murder, mass starvation were all a safe game for the powers that were. The worst they had to fear was a pitchfork in the guts or a knife in the back or the occasional hunting rifle. Not much for soldiers.

To this day, with the Soviet Union now dead 21 years, with a whole generation born and raised to adulthood without the SU, we are still denied our basic and traditional rights to self defense. Why? We are told that everyone would just start shooting each other and crime would be everywhere....but criminals are still armed and still murdering and too often, especially in the far regions, those criminals wear the uniforms of the police. The fact that everyone would start shooting is also laughable when statistics are examined.

While President Putin pushes through reforms, the local authorities, especially in our vast hinterland, do not feel they need to act like they work for the people. They do as they please, a tyrannical class who knows they have absolutely nothing to fear from a relatively unarmed population. This in turn breeds not respect but absolute contempt and often enough, criminal abuse.

For those of us fighting for our traditional rights, the US 2nd Amendment is a rare light in an ever darkening room. Governments will use the excuse of trying to protect the people from maniacs and crime, but are in reality, it is the bureaucrats protecting their power and position. In all cases where guns are banned, gun crime continues and often increases. As for maniacs, be it nuts with cars (NYC, Chapel Hill NC), swords (Japan), knives (China) or home made bombs (everywhere), insane people strike. They throw acid (Pakistan, UK), they throw fire bombs (France), they attack. What is worse, is, that the best way to stop a maniac is not psychology or jail or "talking to them", it is a bullet in the head, that is why they are a maniac, because they are incapable of living in reality or stopping themselves.

The excuse that people will start shooting each other is also plain and silly. So it is our politicians saying that our society is full of incapable adolescents who can never be trusted? Then, please explain how we can trust them or the police, who themselves grew up and came from the same culture?

No it is about power and a total power over the people. There is a lot of desire to bad mouth the Tsar, particularly by the Communists, who claim he was a tyrant, and yet under him we were armed and under the progressives disarmed. Do not be fooled by a belief that progressives, leftists hate guns. Oh, no, they do not. What they hate is guns in the hands of those who are not marching in lock step of their ideology. They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves and do not obey without question. They hate guns in those whom they have slated for a barrel to the back of the ear.

So, do not fall for the false promises and do not extinguish the light that is left to allow humanity a measure of self respect.

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/28-12-2012/123335-americans_guns-0/

 

See, now that is a perfectly valid reason to not want to listen to the dude.

Of course, that still does very little to invalidate the points he is trying to make. And the same standard holds for Alex Jones. He might have very, very good points while being a complete asshole, which would make people not want to listen to him. But the points need to be presented clearly and supported logically, and if Alex Jones were able to do so, you'd have to give credence to his arguments, regardless of how you feel about him personally.

So far the reasons you have given against Piers Morgan's arguments don't follow this criteria. You're saying that no one should listen to anything the guy has to say about gun control because he is not American and because he is unethical. Neither of these points has anything to do with whether or not his argument is a good one or not. You're essentially saying, "He's wrong because I don't like him."

 

I was working on that. In my original post I stated that I wonder what the violent crime rate was in england vrs the US. The best article I could find is from 2009. It pretty much lays it out that taking the guns away from America does not mean less violent crime. It does point out that the data in not perfect but It is pretty clear that Piers's crusade is not trying to make the US safer.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ry-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html

The most violent country in Europe: Britain is also worse than South Africa and U.S.


By James Slack
UPDATED:18:14 EST, 2 July 2009

Britain's violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it has been revealed.

Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries.

The figures comes on the day new Home Secretary Alan Johnson makes his first major speech on crime, promising to be tough on loutish behaviour.

Britain has an even worse violence rate than South Africa (file picture)


The Tories said Labour had presided over a decade of spiralling violence.

In the decade following the party's election in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 per cent to 1.158million - or more than two every minute.

The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show:

The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.
It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.
It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France.

But it is the naming of Britain as the most violent country in the EU that is most shocking. The analysis is based on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.

In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677.


The U.S. has a violence rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents, Canada 935, Australia 92 and South Africa 1,609.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'This is a damning indictment of this government's comprehensive failure over more than a decade to tackle the deep rooted social problems in our society, and the knock on effect on crime and anti-social behaviour.


'We're now on our fourth Home Secretary this parliament, and all we are getting is a rehash of old initiatives that didn't work the first time round. More than ever Britain needs a change of direction.'

The figures, compiled by the Tories, are considered the most accurate and up-to-date available.

But criminologists say crime figures can be affected by many factors, including different criminal justice systems and differences in how crime is reported and measured.


New Home Secretary Alan Johnson is to make his first major speech on crime today

In Britain, an affray is considered a violent crime, while in other countries it will only be logged if a person is physically injured.

There are also degrees of violence. While the UK ranks above South Africa for all violent crime, South Africans suffer more than 20,000 murders each year - compared with Britain's 921 in 2007.

Experts say there are a number of reasons why violence is soaring in the UK. These include Labour's decision to relax the licensing laws to allow round-the-clock opening, which has led to a rise in the number of serious assaults taking place in the early hours of the morning.

But Police Minister David Hanson said: 'These figures are misleading.
Levels of police recorded crime statistics from different countries are simply not comparable since they are affected by many factors, for example the recording of violent crime in other countries may not include behaviour that we would categorise as violent crime.

'Violent crime in England and Wales has fallen by almost a half a peak in 1995 but we are not complacent and know there is still work to do. That is why last year we published 'Saving lives. Reducing harm. Protecting the public. An Action Plan for Tackling Violence 2008-11'.'

The timing of the Europe-wide violence figures is a blow for Mr Johnson, who will today seek to reassert Labour's law and order credentials.

In his first major speech on crime since becoming Home Secretary, Mr Johnson is expected to promise a concerted crack down on antisocial behaviour.

He wants to set up a website to allow the public to see what is taking place in their neighbourhood, such as the number of louts who have been served with Asbos.

Mr Johnson is also known to support early intervention to stop children going off the rails


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html#ixzz2HaYrPpw9

 

Piers Morgan, a douche bag in his own right, but also a very clever man. Whether it was his idea or the idea of the producers, they got exactly what they wanted. They wanted a hostile, aggressive, and animated person to represent those in favor of firearms. It certainly did the job. They knew Alex Jones would blow up. That was the whole point of bringing him on.

 

Your right Piers crusade is about making his ratings higher not about making the US a safer.

 

That's some pretty piss poor analysis in that article. They try to walk it back some, but using that big number as a shiny headline is just as bad as what Piers is doing when he tries to get ratings.

First of all, it's impossible to get a perfect correlation in these comparisons because there's no control group. We have no idea whether violent crime in Britain would be EVEN HIGHER if there were more guns.

That initial analysis also presumes that all violent crimes are considered equal. What if you start measuring violent crimes in terms of percentage of violent crimes that are homicides as compared to percentage of violent crimes that are simply assaults? Would gun ownership have an impact there? How does it correlate with income per capita or other social metrics? They discuss this later in the article.

To put it another way, you can't simply tell other people what the premise of the debate should be by picking a few data points. Ask a big question, then go get ALL of the info you need to find a usable, workable answer.

 

Piers has openly been against the right to bear arms. While I agree he does things as many others on television do; anything to help the ratings, it also has a lot to do with creating a negative image of those who are in favor of guns. The purpose of bringing on Alex Jones over a well articulated person was to "show" Americans the ruthless mentality of those who favor the 2nd amendment. Yes ratings definitely had much to do with it, but, it was also a very good strategic move on behalf of Piers and the producers.

They could have very well brought on an articulate person to express his points in a scholastic manner. But why? If the idea is to rid the land of guns, and you are the one trying to sway the minds of those who don't really have much of an opinion on gun rights, or are somewhat in the middle, why not bring in someone like Alex and label him as the face of all those in favor of guns and semi automatic weapons. Piers just made Alex the poster child of what is wrong with those who favor guns.

 

But isn't that basically what Piers is doing when he only references one point to make his case. He stated up front that he wants guns taken from americans and He kept asking the same question about what the gun violence was in england as compared to the US while ignoring all other forms of violent crime. At least this article tries to widen the point by bringing in more types of violent crime as a point of discussion. It's outdated and has major flaws but it is no worse than what Piers is doing.

 

Ok that makes sense on a 2nd admendment crusade point of view as well as a ratings point of view. My issue is since I can't see repealing the 2nd admendment as making us safer is this just all about making Piers richer?

 

I do not see the government repealing the 2nd amendment either. Its one of the basic rights in which this country was built on. To remove it would be the equivalent of removing a leg from a chair.

Of course Piers makes more money as the show gets higher ratings. Sure makes for good TV. A lot of people watch him. People who hate him, watch him. People who love him, watch him. People who are in the middle, watch him.

 

If you're referring to the video, I don't think that's a fair comparison, considering that the "same question" he was asking was dodged, ignored, overrun, and ignored again. Maybe there would have been additional questions had he been able to get more than a couple of words in here and there? A real, honest conversation/debate has movement to it. Points are addressed and the bigger questions are answered piece by piece. We never got a chance to see movement in that "debate" because it was all crazy ranting and interruptions.

We never got to see movement in that article, because it wasn't created as a debate.

Again, if you're comparing it to what happened in the video, that's not a fair comparison, because there was no opportunity to do anything else. Imagine you were trying to make a point and I just put my fingers in my ears and said, "LA LA LA LA LA!" You would keep making the same point, hoping I would hear it.

Then, after, someone said to you, "Gosh, you just kept repeating the same small thing... you must not have a very good argument." Kind of ridiculous, no?

 

I thought Piers was going after all guns not just assult weapons. I am all for taking assault weapons away. They do not serve a purpose in society. But I fall far short to thinking that guns are the only thing to blame for these horrible events.

I also have an issue with this whole debate being about guns and not about the other contributing factors in these crimes. How come the mental healthcare system is barely being brought up? how come the press speaking out against violent video games has died down? How come press against violence on tv and in movies has died down?

The reason I bring up violent crime is that taking guns away will not lesson violent crime. As far as I can tell England has a higher violent crime rate than the US.

Our press and our elected officials are failing us by not working to fix the other problems that are clearly contributing to this.